Bye Bye Peer-Reviewed Publishing

Abstract

This work is the continuation of a ‘revolution’ started with "Research Counts, Not the Journal". Own and published opinions from worldwide scientists on critical issues of peer-reviewed publishing are presented. In my opinion, peer-reviewed publishing is a quite flawed process (in many way) that has greatly harmed Science for a long time – it has been imposed by most academic and science funding institutions as the only way to assess scientific performance. Unfortunately, most academics still follow that path, even though I believe most do it for the fear of losing their job or not being promoted. This paper aims to encourage (i) a full disruption of peer-reviewed publishing and (ii) the use of free eprint repositories for a sustainable academic/scientific publishing, i.e. healthier (no stress/distress associated to the peer review stage and the long waiting for publication) and more economic, effective and efficient (research is made immediately available and trackable/citable to anyone). On the other hand, it should be pointed out that nothing exists against scientific publishers/journals – actually it´s perfectly normal that any company wants to implement its own quality criteria. This paper is just the way chosen to promote the quick implementation of suitable policies for research evaluation.